Call It What It Is

Californians will vote on an amendment to ban gay marriage in November. Since the California Supreme Court ruled earlier this summer that it is unconstitutional to deny gay people marriage rights, thousands of same-sex couples have gotten married. SO, according to the LA Times, the wording on the ballot will be:

Proposition 8 seeks to “eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.”

The anti-gay religious right is wringing their hands because they wanted the ballot to say that the amendment would:

“provide that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

Jennifer Kerns, head of the Protect Marriage coalition said the current wording could “prejudice voters against the initiative.”

Yes, by all means, let’s not prejudice the voters with the truth. Sorry Jennifer, time to stand by your position. The current wording is much clearer than yours. Eliminating rights is what your ballot initiative will do if it passes. And if a California voter wants to pull that lever, I’m sure they can do it without sugar coating their bigotry.

But Kerns is taking the state attorney general to court to try to get the wording changed to what she feels is the more palatable phrasing. Good luck with that.